Felon Hired By Group-Home Company With Troubled Past

Should DDS permit its group-home companies to hire workers with felony convictions?

With a felony conviction for larceny, Shani Halima Williams doesn't seem a likely fit at a company that operates group homes for developmentally disabled adults, particularly one that saw at least five of its workers fired or arrested for alleged abuse at a home in East Hartford.

But Williams, 32, was hired by Options Unlimited of Bloomfield, despite the 2006 conviction for stealing $9,700, court records show. She received a two-year suspended jail sentence and probation, and was ordered to pay back what she took. She still owes money and faces a violation of probation hearing Nov. 7.

Williams, of Hartford, was also found to have illegally collected over $6,300 in unemployment compensation in two cases in 2010 and 2012, and a portion of her wages at Options Unlimited were attached, court records show.

Monday, the CEO of Options Unlimited confirmed that the company, owners of the King Street group home in East Hartford where an employee was videotaped abusing a client in 2012, is now thinking twice about Williams' hiring.

Asked by The Courant about Williams' job status, CEO Lynn Warner said, "Options Unlimited, Inc. is aware of Ms. Williams' background and is looking into this current situation." She declined to comment further. Williams did not immediately return a voicemail message left on her phone Tuesday.

Many group-home clients have their own bank accounts and state auditors in the past have found instances where group-home employees have stolen thousands of dollars from clients. There are no such allegations against Williams.

For example, auditors in 2011 determined that some employees of a group-home company called Humanidad, based in Rocky Hill, had withdrawn $7,000 from client accounts "with no supporting documentation as to the purpose and intent'' of the withdrawals. And separate DDS investigations in 2009 and 2011 confirmed the theft by some Humanidad staff members of more than $14,000 in client funds.

The clients have been reimbursed by Humanidad's insurance company, but the 2009 re-payment took three years.

DDS, which pays Options Unlimited about $3.5 million a year in public funds to operate a half-dozen group homes, placed the company on "enhanced monitoring" -- meaning DDS case managers, financial analysts and other personnel scrutinized company operations daily -- after the highly publicized, videotaped scenes of abuse at the King Street group home in East Hartford. That incident led to three arrests of group-home employees, and at least two workers had been fired for abuse and other transgressions before that.

But DDS, which gradually phased out the enhanced monitoring as the company improved its management, doesn't screen prospective workers, or participate in any way, in the hiring done by Options Unlimited, or any of the dozens of group-home operators serving several thousand DDS clients across Connecticut.

DDS spokeswoman Joan Barnish said the hiring is left up to the companies.

"We don't have information on provider employees," Barnish said. She added that the department recommends that its contractors follow certain guidelines for screening criminal histories.

She said a prospective employee's criminal background should "be reviewed to evaluate the potential for harm to the health or safety of consumers. The hiring decision rests with the agency."

DDS policy states that the contractors should consider the "applicant's age at the time the offense was committed; mitigating factors at the time the offense; the number of offenses; efforts and success at rehabilitation; the likelihood the offense will be repeated; the individual's employment history since committing the offense; and the relationship between the job applied for and the offense committed."

Warner declined to disclose Williams' job title or say where she works. A source familiar with company operations said Williams is a "residential trainer," works at the King Street group home, and has been there about two years.

Asked what DDS expected Options Unlimited to do in Williams' case, Barnish said, "This is a (company) personnel matter and DDS expects that they follow their (human-resource) policies and procedures."

Williams was arrested by South Windsor police on Sept. 2, 2003, and charged with second-degree forgery and second-degree larceny. The arrest reports have been purged from the file, but one remaining document indicates she was ordered to make restitution to Fleet Bank. In 2006, she was convicted of the larceny charge. Prosecutors did not pursue the forgery count.

Williams was ordered to pay back $9,700. Her probation was extended to give her more time to pay, but because money is still outstanding eight years later, her probation officer has charged her with violating the terms. She is scheduled to admit or deny the violation at the hearing Nov. 7.

Court records also show that the state Department of Labor found she had failed to properly report her earnings at At-Home Care Services LLC of West Hartford during the summer of 2009, and collected $1,112 in unemployment compensation that she wasn't entitled to.

In October 2012, the labor department found Williams had failed to report earnings at Independent Living Solutions of Waterbury from January to April of 2012, and illegally collected $5,247. Independent Living Solutions is also a DDS contractor, licensed to provide home-support services and day programs to DDS clients.

In May of 2012, she reported to her probation officer that "she had recently lost her job" and couldn't make the restitution payments in the larceny case, according to court records.

The $5,247 unemployment-compensation debt has been "partially satisfied," the records show.